AP Sunni, Shiite factions carve up Baghdad (UNplanned by US)

[rodeodance]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14627075/

Sunni, Shiite factions carve up Baghdad
Religious tensions surface as Saddam loyalty no longer acts to unify

Updated: 4:38 p.m. CT Sept 1, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Four years ago this was a city where people mixed freely — where, in most parts of town, no one cared if a neighborhood was majority Sunni or Shiite. Loyalty to Saddam Hussein was more important than religious identity.

But now a battle for Baghdad is well under way between the two major Muslim sects. Death squads are slaughtering people daily, and an estimated 160,000 Iraqis have fled their homes — mostly here in the capital.

Out of that violence, a new but not better city is emerging. Many Iraqis fear that the result will be a Sunni west and a Shiite east, with the broad Tigris River snaking through the middle as the sectarian boundary.
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The process ultimately could leave a legacy of bitterness and poison Iraqi society for generations. Each sect has legitimate claims to territory on both sides of the river that they won’t emotionally abandon. And no national Iraqi government can truly function if sectarian “no go” zones are scattered all over the capital........

[jimshoes]

1. At some point, isn't it just the smart thing

to do to throw in the towel and give it up. Any grand plans these neo-dicks had for Iraq has long ago gone up in smoke, literally. All the bluster in the world can't change the outcome now. Starting a new war to deflect everyone's attention is the only option left to these dolts. And I believe they will do just that.

[Erika]

2. Iraq was a made up country

The factions never had an interest in unity. Saddam at least could control them using a SECULAR government.

W is an idiot for his actions.

[nealmhughes]

3. AP just figured it out? The reports of the checkpoints and of families

"swapping" homes from one side of the barricades to the other have been in the news for a couple of weeks now. Lotsa empty apts. in Baghdad: it seems the Christians have fled for their few villages or the safety of Syria.